


To Loneliness

by DragonBandit



Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Damien claws his way into being a person, Eye Trauma, Gen, H/C bingo, Headaches & Migraines, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 17:15:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19728157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonBandit/pseuds/DragonBandit
Summary: The loss of his power wasn’t the only repercussion Damien suffered after Safehouse.He works retail in the middle of nowhere, and he only misses Mark with every other breath.





	To Loneliness

**Author's Note:**

> Unbataed, any mistakes are my own.

The pain always starts behind his left eye. The eye that Caleb punched so hard that the bone of Damien’s cheekbone cracked in two underneath his fist. Sometimes Damien will go days with just the dull ache of it. Ever-present and annoying, an itch he can’t scratch. A reminder of the day his life officially changed. 

Other days he’ll be laid out in bed thanks to the blinding pain. Playing Russian Roulette with over the counter meds. Atypical biology doesn’t play nice with human medications. Damien’s learned the hard way that either something will  _ really _ work, or it’ll make him so sick that he’ll wish he was dead the entire time it’s in his system.

The AM had given him a bottle of blank white pills but Damien had never trusted them. He’d only taken them in emergencies; who knew what was in them save for that they were damn effective. When Damien had left town, he’d had half a bottle of them left. 

Two months later, the last of those pills had gone too.

There are good days. There are bad days.

Today is a very, very bad day. 

He goes to work irritable (when does he not go to work irritable) the headache like a living thing trying to claw its way out of him. God he wishes it would. He wishes it would stop scraping up the side of his face up into his temples where it spreads to encompass everything with hot, throbbing pain. He spends all day in the back room, staring at a computer screen until the text blurs and bleeds to the point of illegibility. He’d stock shelves, but the humming fluorescent lights of the store make the pain worse, and the chance he’ll snap at a customer is too high to risk it. 

The kid sharing his shift tells him to go home when she finds Damien during her lunch break, his head tipped back to the point where he’s draped over the cheap office chair. It doesn’t help. Nothing helps. 

“Don’t have any sick days left,” Damien tells her. He doesn’t have enough money saved up to quit either. Out of all the things that Damien misses, not having to worry about money is currently the number 3 slot. 

The headache is a solid silver medallist and always will be. Even on Damien’s worst days, it can’t compete for what’s taken gold. 

“You taken any meds?” the kid asks. Damien thinks her names Dahlia, or Destiny, some kind of hippy shit anyway. The beads on the end of her braids hit the light in these little twinkling stars that dig needles into Damien’s skull. “I’ve got some ibuprofen or something in my bag.” 

Damien shakes his head, and instantly regrets it. “Allergies,” he says. “I can’t.” 

“Sorry. I’ll cover for you as much as I can. Take it easy okay?” The door clicks behind her, and the room plunges into as much darkness as you can get when the door has a window mounted to it. 

There is a moment where Damien wonders if his ability made her do that. 

The next moments are spent in agonising pain when he mentally digs around in his skull trying to check. One day he’ll learn. There’s nothing there anymore except a scar that hasn’t had the chance to heal. 

Sometimes Damien wonders if this is what addicts feel like, endlessly reaching for something that they can’t have.

When he gets home, the first thing he does is take half the recommended dosage of the off-brand medication that he can only find in a store roughly three hours away. They’ll knock him out for a good hour or two. If Damien’s lucky he won’t be able to feel his pulse throbbing at the base of his neck and behind his eyeball when he wakes up. 

If he’s really lucky he’ll be too out of it to even dream. 

These days, Damien isn’t lucky. He dreams of the safehouse, and he dreams of the aftermath. He dreams about a drill going through his eye, something digging around inside his skull and it doesn’t hurt until it does. He dreams about the sound and feeling of bones snapping under fists. And he dreams about Mark. Oh, does he dream about Mark. 

When he wakes up his sheets are drenched in sweat. The headache is back to a dull ache. Back to being a reminder of what Damien did, and how he paid for it. His penance for being a piece of shit. 

It used to be that Damien hated all of them. He’d plan his revenge, show them all what they had missed. Burn the AM to the ground. Be the real crazy that Dr B. had always wondered he’d turn into. 

Distance and time has gotten rid of that. It wouldn’t make it better. It wouldn’t change anything, not the way Damien wants it to. Better if he just does what he’s meant to, and stays the hell away. 

He doesn’t blame them, anymore. Not Caleb, not Dr B., not Mark. Not for what happened to him, and what happened after. He caused it. He escalated. It’s all his fault, every single little piece. 

He really is sorry. It’s too little, too late, but he doesn’t know what else to do. If there’s anything else he should do. So he stays the hell away, ignores how every other thought is about Mark, and deals with the fucking headache. 

**Author's Note:**

> [My H/C Bingo Card](https://coinmanatee.dreamwidth.org/1614.html#cutid1)


End file.
